Tsavo West

Tsavo West National Park was created in 1948 in south-eastern Kenya and protects some 9,065 km². It is more rugged, wetter and more densely vegetated than Tsavo East, with volcanic hills, recent cinder cones and young lava flows such as the Shetani.

Its most singular feature is the Mzima Springs: millions of litres of crystal-clear water, filtered for decades through the volcanic rock of the Chyulu Hills, rise there every day, forming pools where hippos and crocodiles live and which supply Mombasa with water. An underwater observatory allows them to be watched below the surface.

The park is home to the Ngulia rhino sanctuary, a fenced enclosure created to protect the eastern black rhino from poaching, which brought it to the brink of extinction in the region; it is one of the oldest recovery programmes in Kenya. The area also carries a particular historical charge: during the construction of the Uganda Railway, in 1898, two maneless lions killed an undetermined number of workers on the Tsavo River before being shot, an episode that gave rise to the legend of the man-eaters of Tsavo.